Under the Influence: Reading and Writing about Advertising

I want to extend a warm hello to all of you who signed up for this online section of EWRT 1A. My name is Rebecca Board Liljenstolpe, and I have been teaching at De Anza since 1997. I look forward to getting to know each of you and facilitating our online learning community.

This quarter we will be delving into the topic of advertising, studying just how powerful an influence it has in our lives. We'll begin by looking at ourselves and the ways we might be influenced--knowingly or not--by the constant barrage of media messages we encounter every day. Each of us strives to be unique, and our consumer choices often reflect our personalities and interests. But to what extent is your self-expression authentic and how much of it is manufactured by persuasive advertising? You might stop for a moment and just take a look at the clothes and shoes you have on now. How many logos can you find? Look around the room you are in. How many brand names can you see? What about the logo--and the ad campaign associated with it--on the computer you are using at this very moment? Have you ever stopped to think about why you buy what you buy and what messages these choices communicate? In addition to exploring these questions, we will spend some time analyzing specific print and television advertisements, and we will devote a lot of attention to the ways advertisers are capitalizing on trends by viewing a PBS Frontline special entitled The Merchants of Cool. The coming weeks should be interesting and fun, and you will certainly have many opportunities to read, discuss, and write your way through the course. Welcome to the class!

This class uses CATALYST, software that houses your online classroom where all of your reading materials and assignments are located. If you are reading this syllabus from my faculty website, you can access the CATALYST Portal from the menu bar. If you are reading this in CATALYST, you are already there!

Enrolled students can login to their course through the CATALYST portal (there is a link to it on my faculty website).

Adding students must first register with admissions and records before accessing CATALYST.  Every 24hours the system uploads new student accounts, so you may need to wait a day for your userid to work. 

Each week your assignments and reading links will appear in the CATALYST Classroom. Be sure you check this link Sunday or Monday so that you are prepared and ready to complete your work on time. There is no textbook for this class. With the exception of television commercials and a magazine advertisement you choose to analyze, all reading materials--including the video and commercials we will look at--are on the web, and I strongly advise you to print them out rather than read them on your browser. <o:p></o:p>

In order to access some of the reading material, you will need RealPlayer OR Windows Media Player. These software programs can be downloaded free from the internet and enable you to access streaming video from your browser, and most newer PCs and MACs come with them already installed. One of your assignments the first week will be to insure you have this software installed on your computer.

Download RealPlayer for your MAC at https://order.real.com/pt/order.html?ppath=cpmacpl060204a&;country=US&language=EN&opage=rpchoice&src=realplayer,021705rpchoice_1_2_2_1_1_3

Download Windows Media Player for your PC at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.aspx

ASSIGNMENTS

You will be turning in three essays to the CATALYST Assignment drop box. Essays will be due at the start of weeks 4, 7 and 10..  You will also work on a final project during weeks 10-12.  Projects are due Sunday at the start of week 12.

QUIZZES

We will have weekly skills checks (6 total) to insure you are doing the reading in the Online Guide to Grammar and Writing. These skills checks are each worth 10 points and will be due no later than Saturday at 11:30 PM each week they are assigned, and they can not be made up once they have closed. The due dates are intended to motivate your study and insure you are doing the reading in advance of your essay's due date. There will also be a final exam/quiz based on the final projects. The final exam will be available in CATALYST Tuesday of finals week, and it will be do that Friday by 11:30 PM.  

CLASS CAFÉ

We will be building our online community in the CATALYST forums, where we will hold class discussion every week. You'll be given discussion topics related to the readings and writing assignments, and you will be expected to post your thoughts and read the comments of others. You should plan on posting comments at least three days a week, and you should be aware that CATALYST tracks your participation for me. It logs each time you enter and exit the system, tracks which pages you visit and for how long, in short, it is like Big Brother watching where you go and what you do in the online classroom. There will also be a forum devoted to The Online Guide to Writing and Grammar, so if you have any questions about this work or about writing in general, post them here.

Whether you have taken a distance learning class before or not, there are some other things you should know about this class.

1. This class is not self-paced. We hold class discussions that you are expected to participate in, and you are graded for participation. The assignments have due dates that are observed, so work can not be turned in when it's convenient for you. If you are an extremely busy person trying to squeeze in a college class, this may not be the one for you.
2. Online classes use new and changing technologies and will always be somewhat experimental and or unpredictable. As your instructor, I have tried to set up a convenient, easy to navigate infrastructure, but I do not have control over all of the technology we use. For example, you may experience problems with your email address or your Internet Service Provider, and I have no control over those. The CATALYST server may be down or may contain some glitches that need to be worked out, and I do not manage it. What we will have to do is communicate with one another and be willing to adapt or try new things. I will try my best to assist when I can, so please let me know when you are having trouble using or understanding any of the technological components of the course.

You should feel comfortable contacting me via email or through yahoo instant messager. My IM name is r_stolpe, and I am often available for IM discussion after 8:30 PM during the week, with a regular IM office hour on Wednesday nights. I do have scheduled on-campus office hours and may also meet you by appointment if you feel more comfortable discussing your writing in person, so check my Contact Information for my current schedule. It is often beneficial to review a writing assignment before you turn it in for a grade, so consider sending me drafts for comment. I am really friendly and want to help you!

My Online Work Hours: I work mostly in the late evening because I have two small children at home.  I do check my email in the mornings, throughout the day when possible, and in the evenings after 9 PM. I can not guarantee I will respond to emails over the weekend, but you can be assured that I will respond to you within 24 hours during the week.

Because I respect the opinions and ideas of others, I am strongly against cheating and stealing and will uphold a strict plagiarism policy.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT VERY CAREFULLY:

Students who submit the work of others in whole or in part will receive a zero and may fail the course if the plagiarism continues. It is the student's responsibility to cite sources and avoid sloppy research. Do not use phrases and sentences that you did not create unless you place them in quotation marks and attribute them to their author. Not one sentence, not one paragraph, nothing! Think carefully. Resist the temptation to pillage the web for content to fill your papers because plagiarism is easy to spot, especially for a writing teacher, and I unfortunately encounter it every quarter. Don't be next!

If you feel you need to do some research but are not sure how to quote an author or document your sources, ASK FOR HELP. There are also several useful resources on the web.

These are the graded requirements:

*           Participation in Online Learning Community (90 pts)

*           Skills Checks (60 pts)

*           Self-Reflection Paper (25 pts)

*           Analysis Paper 1 (50 pts)

*           Analysis Paper 2 (100 pts)

*           Final Project (Group option 100 pts/Individual Option 85/100 pts)

*           Final Exam (20 pts)

Weeks 1,2 & 3 Under the Influence: What We Buy

Skills Check Deadlines 10/3 and 10/10

Self-Reflection Paper Deadline 10/11

Weeks 4, 5 & 6 Under the Influence: Why We Buy

You will need RealPlayer or Media Player for this unit.

Skills Check Deadlines 10/17, 10/24 and 10/31

Analysis Paper 1 Deadline 11/1

Weeks 7, 8 & 9 Under the Influence: The Merchants of Cool

You will need RealPlayer and Media Player for this unit and a high-speed/DSL connection to view the PBS video.

Skills Check Deadline 11/7

Analysis Paper 2 Deadline 11/22

Weeks 10, 11 & 12 Under the Influence: The Messages We’re Receiving

Final Project Deadline 12/6

Final Exam deadline 12/11 5 PM